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Mark Graban

A Mention of Dr. Deming in a UK Editorial
August 25, 2008

Robert Heller: Why don't we hang bad admirals of industry? | Business | The Observer

I don't think the columnist is literally suggesting hanging CEO's... but his point is a good one, that the "carrot & stick" management philosophy is all carrot, no stick.

Heller makes a tie in to the Deming philosophy at the end of his piece, valid comments from Dr. Deming (of course), but I didn't quite get the connection to the rest of the commentary:

That great teacher W Edwards Deming made managers play competitive games to prove that achievement is largely random and that in any team, somebody inevitably comes bottom. Belabouring that unfortunate loser does nothing for overall performance. Treating people as individuals and helping them to succeed and improve is the true answer. Top managers who don't know or practise that truth don't deserve employment, let alone incentives.

Help me out... what are your comments on this? I don't think Dr. Deming would have advocated NOT holding top executives accountable. The failure of many of these CEOs is far from random -- it was based on badly failed business models and greed, for the most part.

Posted by Mark Graban on August 25, 2008 | Comments (1)

August 26, 2008
In response to: A Mention of Dr. Deming in a UK Editorial
Stan Heard commented:

I'm not opposed to Bynging a few industrial leader but I think Mr. Heller completely missed the point at the end of his article. Deming was a major advocate of holding management accountable for results because they are only people in a position to change the system that is producing the results. Demings point with the "games" was that the system produces what the system is designed to produce and there is variance in every system. When people are producing within the variance then there is no improvement caused by motivational carrots and sticks. Mr. Heller seems to be saying that the motivational systems seem to be all carrot at the top and all stick at the bottom.